Structural Integrity
Take these fictions in while you still can.
Some time ago1 I, along with a fellowship of compatriots, embarked on a grandiose, mythical quest to the site of an ancient cultural rite known as a “Renaissance Fair.” It was a long walk to a big grass field on a hot day. These celebrations are meant to mimic the aesthetic of an old “English” town, whatever that is. Jesters and musicians roamed the grounds performing songs and rudimentary comedy routines. Middle-aged belly dancers garnered massive crowds, don’t ask why. A salesman had me roll a dice, where I got a 20 on my first attempt, leading him to give me a free necklace that broke later that day. Colorful stalls sold a delicious gourmet foodstuff known as “corn dogs.”
This wasn’t my first experience at a fair like this, and under any other circumstance a typical day spent at one of them would resemble a gathering of time travelers. Of course “Renaissance” fairs are not exclusively Renaissance-dominated. Instead we encountered several fantasy archetypes. Elf cosplayers, orcs with prosthetic noses, skin tones painted red, blue and even black2, steampunk inventors walking around on giant stilts, and furries. So many furries. I don’t know where they’re coming from.
However it is hypocritical to complain about a lack of consistency when my own “party” was also a genre hodge-podge. I was a mage, having bought a costume from a medieval collectibles site and scoured my backyard for suitable walking sticks before settling on a Harry Potter wand. My friends were split among different archetypes: knights, rangers, viking berserkers. The knights had extremely elaborate suits of armor that were acquired over several years and took half an hour to put on. One friend’s helmet was so dirty and rusty that it stained his face once he took it off; he looked like he was covered in blood. Another friend spent an entire night constructing an animal pelt to wear on his shoulders. So elaborate were our get-ups that we often had people asking to take pictures with us.
The whole thing was fun. There’s a communal element that is sorely lost in times like these. I don’t often attend fairs or conventions but I feel like this type has a particular advantage: dedication to the bit. Other places might get you typical LARPers and actors but it’s never much of a direct focal point as it is here. A man dressed as a peasant pretended to steal from us leading to a large manhunt. Kids requested our services on multiple occasions. A few of the swords sold in the weapons shops were real. We bought a few.
Though we went on a quest, the real reward was the friends we made along the way.
The Math Test Dilemma
Imagine you have a very important math test. And you need to be ready for it.
You prepare and study an awful lot, learning a bunch of formulas and equations and expressions and whatever else you call a “math thing.” You work relentlessly every day to memorize. Sometimes it’s not even on purpose; everywhere you go people are discussing important formulas, too. But there’s a problem: you don’t know exactly what is going to be on the test. You know the stuff you’re learning is within the realm of possibility of being on the test, but you don’t actually have a way of knowing what exactly you’ll need to have learned. Because the test is slightly different for everyone. So you simply decide to learn as much as you can. As you keep practicing, keep studying, waiting to apply your knowledge to the test, it gets tiring. You’ve gathered so much information and you have nowhere to put it.
This goes on for years and years, because there’s another problem: you don’t know when the test will be given to you. It seems to be at random. People keep telling you that it’s coming and that you need to be ready. You try and figure out where you can go and take the test, because maybe it’s being hosted somewhere. But you can’t find it. And when you ask people who have taken the test, all they tell you is that it’ll happen when you least expect it. And yet, you need to be expecting it at all times.
You keep finding new problems, new equations that might be on the test, and you redo or recalibrate some of the other things you’ve already learned. At a certain point, you have attempted to memorize so many different things that you have been driven near crazy trying to predict which ones will actually be on the test. You don’t even know how many. All of them? Some of them? Two? Not only that, but with each passing day it’s more difficult to hang onto this information because there’s an aching impression in the back of your mind that the test is never actually coming, that you’ve put in all this effort for nothing. There are no practice tests except the ones done in your head. No one wants to help beyond giving you more things to remember. So part of you wants to stop, but there’s another anxious feeling fighting that doubt: what if the test is tomorrow?
So there you sit, more and more ready for the test with each passing day, week, month, then year. At least, you think you’re ready. You won’t be able to know until you’re there taking it. The amount of information you’ve been maintaining for this one special occasion has grown to ludicrous levels. You’re not even sure if you can apply them on an individual basis anymore. All of this effort, this stress, while your life flashes before your eyes because all you can think about is that unknowable future, what’s going to happen once you take that test. It’s taken so long. You’re dangling off the edge of a cliff, not able to hold on for much longer, and there is a brewing question that threatens to push you off.
Is the test even worth this?
An-dorphins
My father has been raving to me about this show called Andor. He eventually talked me into watching it. See, I don’t often watch TV. It’s very physically difficult for reasons I am unable to identify. I can stomach driving all the way to a theater and sitting down to watch a three-hour movie just fine. Sometimes they test my patience, but it’s much easier to engage with them than even a single episode of a show that’s less than an hour long. Movie writers and television writers are often in different ballparks. I don’t write for the latter.
I have unfortunately watched many of the Star Wars television shows riddled across streaming platforms. I grew out of it. The problem with most of them3 is that they feel like they could’ve been movies, but instead they’re several hours longer and look much cheaper as a result. As a movie writer, you internalize the need for condensing. At every moment you’re thinking: this could’ve been shorter, they could’ve cut that, that scene wasn’t necessary, etc. Andor is a bit different. And while I’m not going to launch into a big tirade about why the newest IP slop installment is really worth your time, I do want to zone in on a specific aspect I appreciated most about it.
Andor is not something you could simply condense into a movie, because its entire purpose is to show you a wide variety of perspectives via various plotlines. There is an overarching narrative that generally connects everything, but both seasons of the show feature something fairly unique among its crowd. Other shows often use this structure as well, the general nature of TV shows to keep things secluded to one episode or develop elements over entire seasons: the middle ground of arcs.
The main narrative of this show is split into sections spanning multiple episodes. These arcs develop the season’s complete story, building upon stakes and conflicts established from the beginning, but each one has its own particular focus. The benefit of this structure is that each sequence of three episodes is about the length of an average movie. They leave things open-ended to pick up on throughout the rest of the season, but they also feature their own individual setups, payoffs, settings, and even characters. The main guy is sent on a mission to a specific planet? That’s contained to the arc. It ends when the mission is over. He ends up in prison and has to break out? That’s an arc. It moves on to the next one when he’s free. It’s basically feature-length episodes split into three acts, a typical television structure to be episodic with a looming overhead narrative. The show’s second season is even more separated, jumping forward a year after every arc. But I like this structure because it means I do not have to wait six or seven hours to see a story development.
You know what I love? Three acts. They’re so simple, so succinct. Beginning, middle, and end. There’s a reason it’s the most popular story structure. Even most songs abide by it with three choruses. When I practice other structural forms while writing projects it always comes back to the three acts. So my brain has been tricked into thinking this show is secretly a bunch of movies. I love watching those! It helps that the show looks very good visually as well. I can withstand two hours of good TV sometimes if it means there’s going to be an actual ending once I’m done for the day.
And although the show certainly has a liberal bent at times, I do not believe my enemies are incapable of making entertaining stories. A broken clock is right twice a day. I’m probably done with the whole thing after this.4
My Primary Challenge
Last week was Mother’s Day. My church celebrated this by giving all the women something of a socializing hour to relax and have food. This group included the teachers, but those kids were still going to need a lesson, turns out. I bravely volunteered my services5 to teach this fine group of young children.
I had never done it before. The last time I was in an environment to teach the younger generation was when I performed a theater piece in front of a crowd of heckling middle schoolers. I don’t have many memories of being in one of these classes myself. I recall being bored and unable to focus, but I don’t know if that was the teacher’s fault or my own. Now, I had a mission. Give these kids a lesson they were never going to forget.
Unfortunately, this mission went to the wayside because I didn’t realize I would only have about 10 minutes. The kids themselves were about eight years old, and I was way off from what I expected kids that age to act like. The nicest way I can put it is that I expected them to be more verbose. There was such little time that I had to skip most of my plan and head straight for the ending. I gave them cardstock papers and instructed them to write cards for their mothers. Results were varied; some made full-fledged drawings, others just wrote letters in barely legible handwriting, and one kid didn’t write anything at all despite my attempts at encouraging him. He still took it with him once class was over.
I mean, hey, if his mother ended up appreciating the effort of a blank piece of paper then I’m still proud of him.
“Oh, me? I'm not doing anything.”
eons, even
uh oh!
and streaming shows in general
lol
after being asked to